


a place to stand

by kaberett



Category: High Noon Over Camelot - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Canon Trans Character, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-07 10:22:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5453177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaberett/pseuds/kaberett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A canon-divergent happily-ever-after snippet. Happy new year. <3</p></blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Pendragons don't tell the story of how they met and how they fell in love, or leastways they don't tell _a_ story, not any of them: offer to buy 'em a drink and they'll laugh at you, but if you're young and fierce and a certain kind of desperate, the laughter'll be laced with something that might be kindness or might be pity or might be scorn, but any which way one of 'em might just start talking.

Arthur'll tell you a tale of the tournaments, back when settlements sure enough of themselves thought the waste of bullets worth the entertainment made the kids working the trails undergo trials to prove themselves worth the work, so it was said. True enough you had to be desperate or cocksure to participate, but times were lean and work was work and _this_ test of skill promised liquor and powder on top of the job to the best of the lot, and that was enough to tempt Arthur. He hadn't been counting on the fast-as-a-whip ex-sheriff's daughter, nor the quiet man dressed all in worn leather with rust ground deep into the seams who pulled out a piece kept meticulous and matte with oil.

You can try asking which of 'em won, or what they had to do, but them's questions he won't answer.

 

Guinevere'll sneer at you, but the one she tells most often has the boys stumbling into her stakeout, making a mess, and _very nearly_ managing to shoot their way clear. She liked their style so she saved their skins, she'll say, and kept 'em pinned right in her sights while she decided what to do next. In the end, decided it might not have been as tidy as she'd've liked but the job _was_ done, and she could use a sniper and the company for the ride on -- better'n taking to the trails alone this far out. Sure they'd screwed up but they seemed sincere enough about their distaste for what'd been going on before they shut that place down, the three of them, and though she'd planned on getting rid of them to her surprise they proved reliable.

 

Lancelot'll actually mostly sit in silence. Doesn't talk much outside the walls of the old sheriff's house, truth to tell, though everyone knows he's plenty noisy between 'em. But he'll smile at his cup and he won't contradict the rumours that place him as having grown up in the grip of the Lady of the Lake, nor those as say he slipped her grasp and it was his advice as let Arthur get his gun. And Mary, who don't go near the bar but's as good a blacksmith as any you can find, pretends not to hear the whispers that say she and Guinevere know each other from way back; and everyone knows Mary got her reasons to trust Lance, though what those reasons are's not spread around.

***

As for Camelot, rumour there is the Stones poisoned Arthur's father all unaware that he'd a son who'd been fostered out somewhere small and somewhere quiet, to learn how to build a weapon and do basic repairs to hydroponics. Lavinia always had wanted to rule, and for a while there she found a way, but if Arthur didn't care that much for ties of blood the Hanged Man and the Seat kept drawing him back, and the more he travelled and the more he saw, the more he wanted somewhere he could keep safe and prosperous. Young Arthur was an idealist, Lancelot the same, and for all the scorn she'll pour on the idea Guinevere too harboured a longing for somewhere she could stand down.

Arthur was the only one of them hopeful enough to want to bring more children into the world, mind you, and Guinevere flatly refused any involvement, unwilling to compromise her shooting even (or especially) for him. But she noticed that more often'n not when paying work wasn't to be had they returned to the Singers, riding guard on the trails in exchange for food and company and stories; and Lancelot for his part observed the way one Singer in particular paid mind to Arthur, and how her son Gawain watched him with wide eyes across the fire and was always the first to shout welcome when they rode up.

By now they were already the Pendragons, had already fought hard and vicious enough to take their name under a steel sky streaked abruptly with shivers of light, and were not to be separated. Ygraine had woven them into song and with that wove them closer to her, and so it was that with his beloveds' blessing Arthur at last opened his heart to her and her son, and welcomed them. Lancelot and Guinevere schooled the boy in arts of war; Ygraine and Arthur taught him to lead; but more and more Arthur found the travelling left him weary, and more and more his mind turned toward Camelot and what he'd have to do to take it, make it somewhere to be safe and still.

Nimue first. The Lady of the Lake controlled the water, and the Hanged Man had told him of her gun. Between water and weapon he could make a stronghold out of Camelot, a castle if you will, but both were necessary and neither was he willing to risk any but himself on. Lancelot would not mourn the Lady but neither would he get too close; Guinevere had had enough of darkness; and so he slipped away alone, unseen except for Gawain, grown old enough now to claim a watch and already driven by a fierce pride. It was that let Arthur, his favourite, buy his silence: for Gawain knew the three were inseparable, that they arrived and departed together, but a promise that the next time the Pendragons rode he'd be at their side if he so chose was enough to keep him quiet, and quieter still when Arthur was discovered missing, chin high and jaw set and stubborn. Arthur, of course, was travelling light and careful and clever, and the Pendragons could work out well enough where it was he'd gone; knew well enough there'd be no turning him if they found him; knew that meant there was no point looking. And so they didn't: but Lancelot and Guinevere stayed closer to the train, because news travels fastest among troubadours and Ygraine was growing heavy with child, and every time in that long silence they heard a whisper of trouble in the Lady's domain hope flickered briefly into flame.

***

After Nimue there was no avoiding the attention. There was no hiding of that gun, nor of where it'd come from, nor of what he must've done to get it; and Guinevere and Lancelot had their reputations of their own, though the details were messy and muddled. Course every sheriff standing knows people have their eye on that job, but most of those don't worry 'em too much: gotta be tough to have a town. Start looking like a _real_ threat now, though, and you might just find there's a lot less folk willing to trust enough to let you close, and came the point when the Singers came to Ygraine and said: the Pendragons got to go. We need the work we're not getting with them around. And Ygraine looked at Morgause, asleep in a nest of blankets in the rust and now near old enough to walk, and she sighed, and that night she said to Arthur: now go.

Gawain left with them, of course. Burning with Arthur's whispered promise, he wouldn't hear he'd be better needed left at home, and so it was that the four of them made the trek across the steel to Camelot.

Most everyone knows how this one goes, the three Pendragons riding bold as you like down the main boulevard of Camelot. Gawain they'd sent up the pylon, borrowing the trick from Lancelot's relative youth, to cover 'em. Not that they intended to need it and to be sure it kept the boy out of the way, but it was true enough that while he couldn't best Lance's marksmanship he'd practised with grim determination such that more often'n not he could equal his fostered father.

So it was that Camelot, taken and secured, grew prosperous; so it was that the Pendragons, now sure of themselves, sent Gawain to bring his mother home in triumph.

***

Doubtless you know this part of the story too, or think you do, for though it ain't often spoke of it left its scars. See it's true enough that the Singers' camp was raided by the Saxons but the bit Gawain missed spite of growing up amidst it was for all the so-called ghouls were feared and for all they _did_ follow the caravans through the dunes of the rust sea, by and large they stayed close enough to hear the songs and far enough back not to be seen, picking up scrap as it was thrown away. To be sure if they could use it they did and if they could eat it they would, but the desert killed often enough to keep 'em fed. Wasn't til the Singers were already dead or mostways there the Saxons came through; no sense in offering aid to people who'll shoot you on sight and revile your generosity, but still come the end they'll trade mercy for metal, do you the honour of memory in exchange for flesh.

Morgause, though, or Mordred as he was to become, had been kept strong until the last, and was still strong now, and Morgan looked at the child and decided that he, at least, could learn, and could carry the memories of what had been his people, and maybe even grow to carry stories back, to build a bridge.

All that Gawain could see was his shame and his grief, and the sick certainty that he'd to return and tell his surviving parents of his failure.

***

Meanwhile, in the dark, Mordred grew among the ghouls and learned their songs as well as those he'd been born to, and Morgan taught him and shaped him up until her death and then beyond it, with her heart and with her hope: so Mordred left the hard-won home he knew for Camelot.

***

He knew Gawain for his brother, of course. Brief confused memories of the handful of days after his first departure for Camelot, smeared impressions of sound and colour and a fierce young man, were of little use in recognising the bitter knight fifteen years older than the boy he'd almost known, but still Gawain was Ygraine's son and honoured for it by the Pendragons, most particularly by Arthur.

Gawain did not know Mordred.

He believed his sister perished and still dreamed of his mother's blood and ruined face. Arthur had turned inward in his grief, planted his feet firmer still on steel his father'd claimed, and carved out a space in the wastes that was safe, safe enough for folk to flock to. But Gawain turned his rage outward: as the Pendragons grew older Gawain'd taken on more of the patrols, the posse of knights riding the perimeters of Camelot's lands and farms, discouraging the bandits and dispensing justice of a kind as was called for.

The young knight Mordred joined him, and was slow to speech and slow to shoot but nonetheless solved problems, and brought more people home. Gawain began by sneering, then by scoffing, and came eventually to silence, made less bitter by the fact the boy was when he came to it quick on the draw and sure of aim. There was nothing about him to draw the eye but Gawain found that he was, nonetheless, drawn; and as to why could only think that Mordred did not back down. He was one of only a handful who ever gainsaid Gawain, and one of fewer still steady enough to sway him, which held a fascination.

Gawain was, of course, not the only one to notice this. The Pendragons placed trust in Gawain, for his purpose was noble and well-meant for all his heart was twisted out of true by grief; but who among them had not been bereaved? Easy enough to forgive what did no harm to you. That the boy Mordred (and they were old enough, now, to think him _boy_ ) could wield such influence and so wisely spoke well of him, and he too earned their trust.

***

Camelot has certain implacable laws, first among them freedom from coercion without regard to rank. So Gawain's desire was turned aside by Mordred's polite disinterest, and no more was said; no more than was discussed beyond the barest murmurs that when away from his duties Mordred was most often to be found beneath the Hanged Man, the quietest speculation as to what might pass between them, for on this topic as so many others in company Mordred was all but silent.

Yet still he rose, still unrecognised as Arthur's son, and come the day that the Pendragons departed in search of the GRAIL, Mordred and Gawain were left to rule; and so it was his patient practice of diplomacy at last revealed its goal, and Mordred left to broker peace with the ghouls.

From here the story's one I'm certain you've been told.


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A canon-divergent happily-ever-after snippet. Happy new year. <3

You want to hear it again? Well enough. While Mordred sued for peace, Gawain watchful at his back and his Saxon siblings facing him across the plain, the Pendragons found the Captain and the GRAIL. Made wary by the Hanged Man's words, Arthur stayed his lovers' guns and watched the Captain wake: and then they entered into conference.

This time the scorpion was seen by Gawain, too. He and the Saxon moved together to protect Mordred, and in the startlement that followed Gawain recalled Merlin's urgent counsel. Yes, he moved to fight - but trust for Mordred stayed his hand and the suspended moment broke as breath released.

This time, when Mordred strode into the council chamber no shots rang out across the round table; the Pendragons stood arrayed around the Chair, watching the stranger sitting there; and as Mordred presented his victory and his history to his father, the Captain flicked through status indicators and interfaces and identification protocols, and slowly the engines powered up, and a course was set to steer Fort Galfridean away from Avalon.

Not that anything is ever quite that simple. There were terms to be decided, and a Captain half-mad with grief just woken from his centuries of slumber to a changed world and Camelot in need of his allegiance; but now, thanks to Galahad, there was _time_ in which to forge a peace.

Which is as happy an ending as you're ever like to see, so leave them be and live.


End file.
